THE    ANCIENT    EGYPTIAN 
DOCTRINE     OF      IMMORTALITY. 


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THE 


Ancient  Egyptian  Doctrine 


OF   THE 


Immortality  of  the  Soul 


ALFRED    WIEDEMANN,    D.PH. 

PROFESSOR     OF     ORIENTAL     LANGUAGES     AT     THE     UNIVERSITY     OF     BONN 

AUTHOR  OF 

"^GYPTISCHE   GESCHICHTE,"   "DIE  RELIGION  DER  ALTEN  ^GYPTER," 

**  HERODOT's  ZWEITES  BUCH  " 


Wiiih  i:tDettts-0ne   iUttdtmtion;^ 


LONDON 

H.     GREVEL     &     CO. 

33,    KING    STREET,    COVENT    GARDEN,    W.C. 


T  S-  isj  ^ 


Printed  by  Haf^lJ  \yatson,  Si:.Vihe^'/L4-i  J-ondon  and  Aylesbury. 


PREFACE. 


T  N  writing  this  treatise  my  object  has  been  to 
-■-  give  a  clear  exposition  of  the  most  important 
shape  which  the  doctrine  of  immortality  assumed  in 
Egypt.  This  particular  form  of  the  doctrine  was 
only  one  of  many  different  ones  that  were  held. 
The  latter,  however,  were  but  occasional  manifesta- 
tions, whereas  the  system  here  treated  of  was  the 
popular  belief  among  all  classes  of  the  Egyptian 
people,  from  early  to  Coptic  times.  By  far  the 
greater  part  of  the  religious  papyri  and  tomb  texts 
and  of  the  inscriptions  of  funerary  stelae  are  devoted 
to  it ;  the  symbolism  of  nearly  all  the  amulets  is 
connected  with  it  ;  it  was  bound  up  with  the 
practice  of  mummifying  the  dead  ;  and  it  centred 
in  the  person  of  Osiris,  the  most  popular  of  all 
the  gods  of  Egypt. 

260822 


VIU  PREFACE. 

Even  in  Pyramid  times  Osiris  had  already  attained 
pre-eminence ;  he  maintained  this  position  through- 
out the  whole  duration  of  Egyptian  national  life, 
and  even  survived  its  fall.  From  the  fourth  century 
B.C.  he,  together  with  his  companion  deities,  entered 
into  the  religious  life  of  the  Greeks  ;  and  homage 
was  paid  to  him  by  imperial  Rome.  Throughout 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  Roman  Empire,  even 
to  the  remotest  provinces  of  the  Danube  and  the 
Rhine,  altars  were  raised  to  him,  to  his  wife  Isis,  and 
to  his  son  Harpocrates  ;  and  wherever  his  worship 
spread,  it  carried  with  it  that  doctrine  of  immor- 
tality which  was  associated  with  his  name.  This 
Osirian  doctrine  influenced  the  systems  of  Greek 
philosophers ;  it  made  itself  felt  in  the  teachings  of 
the  Gnostics  ;  we  find  traces  of  it  in  the  writings 
of  Christian  apologists  and  the  older  fathers  of  the 
Church,  and  through  their  agency  it  has  affected 
the  thoughts  and  opinions  of  our  own  time. 

The  cause  of  this  far-reaching  influence  lies  both 
in  the  doctrine  itself,  which  was  at  once  the  most 
profound  and  the  most  attractive  of  all  the  teachings 
of  the  Egyptian  religion  ;   and  also  in  the  comfort 


PREFACE.  IX 

and  consolation  to  be  derived  from  the  pathetically 
human  story  of  its  founder,  Osiris.  He,  the  son 
of  the  gods,  had  sojourned  upon  earth  and  bestowed 
upon  men  the  blessings  of  civilisation.  At  length 
he  fell  a  prey  to  the  devices  of  the  Wicked  One, 
and  was  slain.  But  the  triumph  of  evil  and  of  death 
was  only  apparent :  the  work  of  Osiris  endured,  and 
his  son  followed  in  his  footsteps  and  broke  the  power 
of  evil.  Neither  had  his  being  ended  with  death, 
for  on  dying  he  had  passed  into  the  world  to  come, 
henceforth  to  reign  over  the  dead  as  "  The  Good 
Being."  Even  as  Osiris,  so  must  each  man  die,  no 
matter  how  noble  and  how  godly  his  life  ;  never- 
theless his  deeds  should  be  established  for  ever,  his 
name  should  endure,  and  the  life  which  is  eternal 
awaited  him  beyond  the  tomb.  To  the  Egyptian, 
nature  on  every  hand  presented  images  of  the  life 
of  Osiris.  To  him  that  life  was  reflected  in  the 
struggle  between  good  and  evil,  in  the  contest  be- 
tween the  fertilising  Nile  and  the  encroaching  desert, 
no  less  than  in  the  daily  and  yearly  courses  of  the 
sun.  In  earlier  times  Osiris  was  occasionally  con- 
founded   with   the  Sun    god  ;    later,  the  two  deities 


X  PREFACE. 

were  habitually  merged  in  one  another.  The  death 
and  resurrection  of  Osiris  occurred  at  the  end  of  the 
month  Khoiak — that  is  to  say,  at  the  winter  solstice, 
concurrently  with  the  dying  of  the  Sun  of  the  Old 
Year  and  the  rising  of  the  Sun  of  the  New.  The 
new  phoenix  was  supposed  to  make  his  appear- 
ance in  March ;  and  this  bird,  although  usually 
associated  with  the  Sun,  was  often  representative 
of  Osiris.  And  the  epithets  and  titles  of  the  Sun 
god  were  similarly  bestowed  upon  Osiris. 

All  the  Osirian  doctrines  were  readily  apprehended 
in  spite  of  their  deep  import,  and  they  steadily  tended 
towards  the  evolution  of  a  high  form  of  monotheistic 
belief.  To  no  close  student  of  these  doctrines  can 
the  fact  seem  strange  that  Egypt  should  have  been 
the  first  country  in  which  Christianity  permeated  the 
whole  body  of  the  people.  The  Egyptian  could 
recognise  his  old  beliefs  in  many  a  Christian  theme, 
and  so  much  did  the  figure  of  Christ  remind  him 
of  Osiris  and  his  son  Horus,  that  to  him  Christ 
became  a  hero  who  traversed  the  Nile  valley  even 
as  Horus  had  done,  overcoming  His  enemies,  the 
evil  demons  and  the  wicked.     In  Egypt  the  Osirian 


PREFACE.  xi 

faith  and  dogma  were  the  precursors  of  Christianity, 
the  foundations  upon  which  it  was  able  to  build  ; 
and,  altogether  apart  from  their  intrinsic  worth  and 
far-reaching  influence,  it  is  this  which  constitutes 
their  significance  in  the  history  of  the  world. 

For  the  choice  of  the  illustrations,  as  well  as  for 
the  English  version,  I  am  gratefully  indebted  to 
my  translator. 

ALFRED  WIEDEMANN. 

Bonn,  March  1895. 


THE 

ANCIENT  EGYPTIAN  DOCTRINE 

OF   THE 

IMMORTALITY  OF  THE   SOUL. 


T  ITTLE  as  we  know  of  the  ancient  Egyptian 
-L-^  religion  in  its  entirety,  and  of  its  motley 
mixture  of  childishly  crude  fetichism  and  deep 
philosophic  thought,  of  superstition  and  true  religious 
worship,  of  polytheism,  henotheism,  and  pantheism, 
one  dogma  stands  out  clearly  from  this  confusion, 
one  article  of  belief  to  which  the  Egyptian  religion 
owes  its  unique  position  among  all  other  religions 
of  antiquity — the  doctrine  of  the  immortality  of  the 
human  soul.  It  is  true  that  other  ancient  religions 
attained  to  a  similar  dogma,  for  the  belief  was 
early   developed   among    Semites,    Indo-germanians, 

I  I 


2:-    ;   ™e  AJ>^CTE'NT   EGYPTIAN   DOCTRINE   OF 

Turanians,  and  Mongolians  ;  but  in  all  these  cases  it 
appears  as  the  outcome  of  a  higher  conception  of 
man  and  God  and  of  their  reciprocal  relationship, 
and,  when  attained  to,  brought  about  the  abandon- 
ment  of  grossly  material  forms  of  thought.  But  in 
Egypt  we  have  the  unique  spectacle  of  one  of  the 
most  elaborated  forms  of  the  doctrine  of  immortality 
side  by  side  with  the  most  elementary  conception  of 
higher  beings  ever  formulated  by  any  people.  We 
do  not  know  whether  the  belief  in  immortality  which 
prevailed  in  the  valley  of  the  Nile  is  as  old  as  the 
Egyptian  religion  in  general,  although  at  first  sight  it 
appears  to  be  so.  The  oldest  of  the  longer  religious 
texts  which  have  come  down  to  us  are  found  in  the 
wall  inscriptions  of  pyramids  of  kings  of  the  Fifth 
and  Sixth  Dynasties  (according  to  Manetho's  scheme 
of  the  dynasties),  and  must  be  dated  to  at  least 
3000  B.C.  In  these  texts  the  doctrine  of  immortality 
appears  as  a  completed  system  with  a  long  history 
of  development  behind  it. 

In  that  system,  all  the  stages  through  which  this 
doctrine  of  the  Egyptian  religion  had  successively 
passed  are  preserved  ;  for  the  Egyptians  were  so 
immoderately  conservative  in  everything  that  they 
could   not   make  up   their   minds   to   give   up   their 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL.  3 

old  ideas  of  deity,  even  after  having  advanced  to 
higher  and  purer  ones.  The  older  ideas  were  all 
carefully  retained,  and  we  find  various  systems  of 
religion  which  in  point  of  time  had  followed  each 
other  on  Egyptian  soil  afterwards  existing  side  by 
side.  There  is  no  trace  of  any  struggle  for  the 
victory  between  these  systems  ;  each  new  order  of 
thought  was  taken  as  it  arose  into  the  circle  of  the 
older  ones,  however  heterogeneous  it  might  be  to 
the  rest.  The  consequence  was  that  in  Egypt  there 
was  no  religious  progress  in  our  sense  of  the  term. 
With  us  it  is  essential  that  old  and  outworn  forms 
of  belief  should  be  cast  off ;  with  them  a  new 
doctrine  could  achieve  no  greater  success  than  to  win 
a  place  among  the  older  conceptions  of  the  Egyptian 
Pantheon. 

Each  single  divinity,  each  religious  belief,  each 
amulet,  has  in  itself  a  clear  and  intelligible  signifi- 
cance ;  and  where  this  is  apparently  otherwise  it  is 
not  because  the  point  was  obscure  to  the  Egyptian 
mind,  but  because  we  have  not  yet  succeeded  in 
making  it  clear  to  ourselves.  When  we  abandon 
the  consideration  of  single  points  and  try  to  imagine 
how  the  different  detached  notions  were  combined  by 
the  people  into  one  belief,  and  what  picture  they  had 


4  THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN    DOCTRINE   OF 

really  formed  of  their  Heaven  and  Pantheon — then 
we  have  set  ourselves  an  impossible  task.  Many 
divinities  have  precisely  the  same  character  and 
perform  the  same  functions  ;  whole  circles  of  ideas 
are  mutually  exclusive ;  yet  all  existed  together  and 
were  accepted  and  believed  in  at  one  and  the  same 
time. 

In  these  circumstances  any  discussion  of  Egyptian 
religious  ideas  must  begin  by  dealing  with  isolated 
facts  ;  each  divinity,  each  idea,  each  smallest  amulet 
must  be  carefully  examined  by  itself  and  treated  of 
in  the  light  of  the  texts  specially  referring  to  it. 
Generations  of  Egyptians  pondered  on  each  single 
point  seeking  to  elucidate  it.  With  anxious  fear 
priests  and  laymen  strove  to  acquire  the  use  of  all 
the  formulae  by  the  help  of  which  man  hoped  to 
appease  the  gods,  overcome  demons,  and  attain  to 
bliss,  and  all  sought  to  provide  themselves  with  every 
amulet  possessing  efficacy  for  the  world  to  come  and 
import  for  man's  eternal  welfare.  But  great  as  must 
have  been  the  expenditure  of  thought  which  produced 
and  developed  their  various  religious  doctrines,  the 
Egyptians  never  succeeded  in  welding  their  different 
beliefs  and  practices  into  one  consistent  whole. 

In  most  religions  the  gods  of  life  are  distinct  from 


THE   IMMORTALITY  OF   THE   SOUL.  5 

the  gods  of  death,  but  such  a  distinction  scarcely 
existed  at  all  in  Egypt.  There  the  same  beings  who 
were  supposed  to  determine  the  fate  of  man  in  this 
world  were  supposed  to  determine  it  also  in  the  world 
to  come  ;  only  in  the  case  of  certain  deities  sometimes 
the  one  and  sometimes  the  other  side  of  the  divine 
activity  was  brought  into  special  prominence.  The 
exercise  of  their  different  functions  by  the  gods  was 
not  in  accordance  with  any  fixed  underlying  principle, 
was  not  any  essential  outcome  of  their  characters,  but 
rather  a  matter  of  their  caprice  and  inclination.  In 
course  of  time  the  Egyptian  idea  of  these  functions 
changed,  and  was  variously  apprehended  in  different 
places.  It  seems  to  us  at  first  as  though  the  relation 
of  the  gods  to  the  life  beyond  had  nearly  everywhere 
been  regarded  as  more  important  than  their  relation 
to  this  life.  But  this  impression  is  owing  to  the  fact 
that  our  material  for  the  study  of  the  Egyptian 
religion  is  almost  exclusively  derived  from  tombs 
and  funerary  temples,  while  the  number  of  Egyptian 
monuments  unconnected  with  the  cult  of  the  dead  is 
comparatively  small. 

On  this  account  it  has  been  supposed  that  both  in 
their  religion  and  in  their  public  life  the  Egyptians 
turned  all  their  thoughts  towards  death  and  what  lay 


6  THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN    DOCTRINE   OF 

beyond  it  But  a  close  examination  of  the  monu- 
ments has  proved  that  they  had  as  full  an  enjoyment 
of  the  life  here  as  other  nations  of  antiquity,  and  that 
they  are  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  stiff  and  spiritless 
race  of  men  whose  thoughts  were  pedantically  turned 
towards  the  contemplation  of  the  next  world. 

Had  this  been  the  case,  the  Egyptians  would  have 
come  to  hold  a  pessimistic  view  of  the  life  here  and 
hereafter  something  like  that  prevailing  in  India,  and 
have  striven  to  escape  from  the  monotony  and  dulness 
of  existence  by  seeking  some  means  to  end  it.  But 
this  is  the  reverse  of  what  happened  in  the  valley  of 
the  Nile.  The  most  ardent  wish  of  its  inhabitants 
was  to  remain  on  earth  as  long  as  possible,  to  attain 
to  the  age  of  one  hundred  and  ten  years,  and  to 
continue  to  lead  after  death  the  same  life  which  they 
had  been  wont  to  lead  while  here.  They  pictured 
the  after-life  in  the  most  material  fashion  ;  they  could 
imagine  no  fairer  existence  than  that  which  they  led 
on  the  banks  of  the  Nile.  How  simple  and  at  the 
same  time  how  complicated  were  their  conceptions 
can  best  be  shown  by  some  account  of  their  ideas 
on  the  immortality  of  the  soul  and  its  constitution 
as  a  combination  of  separate  parts  set  forth  in 
ancient  Egyptian  documents. 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL.  7 

When  once  a  man  was  dead,  when  his  heart  had 
ceased  to  beat  and  warmth  had  left  his  body,  a 
Hfeless  hull  was  all  that  remained  of  him  upon  earth. 
The  first  duty  of  the  survivors  was  to  preserve  this 
from  destruction,  and  to  that  end  it  was  handed  over 
to  a  guild  whose  duty  it  was  to  carry  out  its  embalm- 
ment under  priestly  supervision.  This  was  done 
according  to  old  and  strictly  established  rules.  The 
internal  and  more  corruptible  parts  were  taken  away, 
and  the  rest  of  the  body — i.e.^  the  bony  framework 
and  its  covering — was  soaked  in  natron  and  asphalt, 
smeared  with  sweet-smelling  unguents,  and  made 
incorruptible.  The  inside  of  the  body  was  filled  with 
linen  bandaging  and  asphalt,  among  which  were 
placed  all  kinds  of  amulets  symbolising  immor- 
tality— heart-shaped  vases,  snake-heads  in  carnelian, 
scarabaei,  and  little  glazed-ware  figures  of  divinities. 
By  their  mystic  power  these  amulets  were  intended 
to  further  and  assist  the  preservation  of  the  corpse, 
for  which  physical  provision  had  already  been  made 
by  embalmment.  In  about  seventy  days,  when  the 
work  of  embalmment  was  completed,  the  body  was 
wrapped  in  linen  bandages,  placed  in  a  coffin,  and 
so  returned  to  the  family. 

The   friends   and   relatives   of   the   deceased    then 


8  THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN   DOCTRINE   OF 

carried  the  dead  in  solemn  procession  across  the 
river  to  his  last  resting-place,  which  he  had  provided 
for  himself  in  the  hills  forming  the  western  boundary 
of  the  valley  of  the  Nile.  Mourning-women  accom- 
panied the  procession  with  their  wailing ;  priests 
burnt  incense  and  intoned  prayers,  and  other  priests 
made  offerings  and  performed  mysterious  ceremonies 
both  during  the  procession  and  at  the  entrance  to 
the  tomb*  The  mummy  was  then  lowered  into 
the  vault,  which  was  closed  and  walled  up,  further 
offerings  were  made,  and  afterwards  the  mourners 
partook  of  the  funeral  feast  in  the  ante-chamber  of 
the  tomb.  Harpers  were  there  who  sang  of  the 
dead  man  and  of  his  worth,  and  exhorted  his 
relations  to  forget  their  grief  and  again  to  rejoice 
in   life,  so  long  as  it  should  be  granted   unto  them 

*  The  whole  process  of  embalmment  is  briefly  described  in 
the  Rhind  Papyrus,  edited  by  Birch,  London,  1863,  and  by 
Brugsch,  Leipzig,  1865.  The  procedure  of  the  taricheuts  is 
described  in  a  Vienna  papyrus,  edited  by  Bergmann,  Vienna, 
1887,  and  the  conclusion  of  their  operations  in  a  Paris  papyrus 
and  a  Bulaq  papyrus,  edited  by  Maspero,  Pap.  du  Louvre^ 
Paris,  1875.  For  the  transport  of  the  mummy,  see  DiJMiCHEN, 
Kal.  Insch.y  pi.  35  sqq.  The  minutely  ordered  ritual  for  the 
ceremonies  at  the  door  of  the  tomb  was  published  and  investi- 
gated in  ScHiAPARELLi's  admirable  work,  //  Libro  dei  Funerali, 
Turin,  1881 — 1890. 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL.  9 

to  enjoy  the  light  of  the  sun  ;  for  when  Hfe  is  past 
man  knows  not  what  shall  follow  it ;  beyond  the 
grave  is  darkness  and  long  sleep.  Gayer  and  gayer 
grew  the  banquet,  often  degenerating  into  an  orgy ; 
when  at  length  all  the  guests  had  withdrawn,  the 
tomb  was  closed,  and  the  dead  was  left  alone. 
Afterwards  it  was  only  on  certain  feast  days  that 
the  relatives  made  pilgrimages  to  the  city  of  the 
dead,  sometimes  alone  and  sometimes  accompanied 
by  priests.  On  these  occasions  they  again  entered 
the  ante-chamber  of  the  tomb,  and  there  offered 
prayers  to  the  dead,  or  brought  him  offerings, 
either  in  the  shape  of  real  foods  and  drinks, 
or  else  under  the  symbolic  forms  of  little  clay 
models  of  oxen,  geese,  cakes  of  bread,  and  the 
like.  Otherwise  the  tomb  remained  unvisited.  How 
it  there  fared  with  the  dead  could  only  be  learned 
from  the  doctrines  and  mysteries  of  religion  ;  to 
descend  into  the  vault  and  disturb  the  peace  of 
the  mummy  was  accounted  a  heavy  crime  against 
both  gods  and  men. 

And  yet  how  much  an  Egyptian  could  have  wished 
to  look  behind  the  sealed  walls  of  the  sepulchral 
chamber  and  see  what  secret  and  mysterious  things 
there  befell  the  dead  !     For  their  existence  had  not 


lO         THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN    DOCTRINE   OF 

terminated  with  death  ;  their  earthly  being  only 
had  come  to  an  end,  but  they  themselves  had 
entered  on  a  new,  a  higher  and  an  eternal  life.  The 
constituent  parts,  whose  union  in  the  man  had  made 
a  human  life  possible,  separated  at  the  moment  of 
his  death  into  those  which  were  immortal  and  those 
which  were  mortal.  But  while  the  latter  formed 
a  unity,  and  constituted  the  corruptible  body 
only  (  I  Kha),  on  which  the  above-mentioned 
rites  of  embalmment  were  practised,  each  of  the 
former  were  distinct  even  when  in  combination. 
These  "  living,  indestructible  "  parts  of  a  man,  which 
together  almost  correspond  to  our  idea  of  the  soul, 
had  found  their  common  home  in  his  living  body  ; 
but  on  leaving  it  at  his  death  each  set  out  alone 
to  find  its  own  way  to  the  gods.  If  all  succeeded 
in  doing  so,  and  it  was  further  proved  that  the 
deceased  had  been  good  and  upright,  they  again 
became  one  with  him,  and  so  entered  into  the 
company  of  the  blessed,  or  even  of  the  gods. 

The  most  important  of  all  these  component  parts  * 

*  On  these  component  parts  cf.  Wiedemann  in  the  Proceed- 
ings of  the  Orientalist  Congress  at  St.  Etienne^  II.  (1878),  p.  159 
etseq.  Many  parallel  texts  to  the  additional  chapter  of  The  Book 
of  the  Dead,  there  referred  to,  may  be  found  in  Von  Bergmann's 
Sarkophag  des  Panehemisis,  I.,  p.  22;  II.,  p.  74.  et  seq. 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL.  1 1 

was  the  so-called  [_],  Ka,  the^diyine  counterpart  of 
the  deceased,  holding  the  same  relation  to  him  as 
a  word  to  the  conception  which  it  expresses,  or  a 
statue  to  the  living  man.  It  was  his  individuality 
as  embodied  in  the  man's  name  ;  the  picture  of  him 
which  was,  or  might  have  been,  called  up  in  the 
minds  of  those  who  knew  him  at  the  mention  of 
that  name*  Among  other  races  similar  thoughts 
have  given  rise  to  higher  ideas,  and  led  to  a  philo- 
sophic explanation  of  the  distinction  between  per- 
sonalities and  persons,  such  as  that  contained  in 
the  Platonic  Ideas.  But  the  Egyptian  was  incapable 
of  abstract  thought,  and  was  reduced  to  forming 
a  purely  concrete  conception  of  this  individuality, 
which  is  strangely  impressive  by  reason  of  its 
thorough  sensuousness.  He  endowed  it  with  a 
material  form  completely  corresponding  to  that  of 
the  man,  exactly  resembling  him,  his  second  self, 
his  Double,  his  Doppelgdnger.\ 

Many  scenes,  dating  from  the  eighteenth  century 
*  On  this  account  Ka  was  sometimes  used  as  interchangeable 
with  Ren  (  <=="  ) — name. 

\  There  is  no  modern  word  which  exactly  expresses  the 
Egyptian  idea  of  the  Ka  ;  Maspero's  translation  of  *•  Double, 
Doppelgdnger^'  is  the  best  hitherto  proposed ;  Meyer's  transla- 
tion of  "  Ghost"  {Gesch.  ^g.,  p.  83)  is  altogether  misleading. 


12         THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN   DOCTRINE   OF 

B.C.  and  onwards,  represent  different  kings  appearing 


Fig.  I. — Hatshepsu,  accompanied  by  her  Ka,  making  perfume- 
offerings.     {From  the  temple  of  Der  el  Bahri,)  * 

*  The  illustration  is  taken  from  Lepsius,  Denkmciler,  III.  21. 
Here  the  solar  cartouche,  or  throne-name,  of  Thothmes  11. ,  and  his 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL.  1 3 

before  divinities,  while  behind  the  king  stands  his 
Ka,  as  a  Httle  man  with  the  king's  features  (fig.  i), 
or  as  a  staff  with  two  hands  (fig.  2),*  and  surmounted 
by  certain  symbols  of  royalty,  or  by  the  king's  head. 
In  these  scenes  the  Personality  accompanies  the 
Person,  following  him  as  a  shadow  follows  a  man. 

But  even  as  early  as  the  time  of  Amenophis  III., 
about  1500  B.C.,  the  Egyptians  had  carried  the  idea 
still  further,  and  had  completely  dissevered  the  Per- 

Horus-  or  Ka-name,  are  palimpsests  effacing  the  names  of  Queen 
Hatshepsu  Ramaka,  the  builder  of  the  temple.  The  figures  in 
this  scene  originally  represented  the  Queen  and  her  Ka  ;  but  as 
she  is  always  portrayed  in  male  attire  throughout  the  temple,  it 
was  only  necessary  to  change  her  names  in  order  to  appropriate 
her  figure  as  that  of  a  king.  The  first  satisfactory  explanation  of 
the  Horus-  or  KA-name  was  given  by  Petrie  in  A  Season  in 
Egypiy  pp.  21,  22;  cf.  Maspero,  Atudes  Egyptologiques,  II., 
p.  273  et  seq.  He  shows  that  the  rectangular  parallelogram 
in  which  the  Horus-name  is  written  is  the  exact  equivalent  of 
the  square  panel  over  the  false  door  in  the  tomb,  by  which  the 
Ka  was  supposed  to  pass  from  the  sepulchral  vault  into  the 
upper  chamber,  or  tomb-chapel,  where  offerings  were  provided 
for  it.  A  private  person  had  but  one  name,  which  was  also  the 
name  of  his  Ka.  But,  on  ascending  the  throne,  the  king  took 
four  new  names  in  addition  to  the  one  which  he  had  hitherto 
borne,  and  among  them  a  name  for  his  Ka. 

*  We  have  a  crude  representation  of  this  Ka  sign,  dating  from 
the  reign  of  Amenemhat  I.,  of  the  Twelfth  Dynasty ;  see  Petrie, 
Tanis  L  (S2Cond  Memoir  of  the  Egypt  Exploration  Fund),  pi.  I., 
No.  3. 


H 


THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN    DOCTRINE   OF 


sonality  from  the  Person,  the  king  being  frequently 
represented  as  appearing  ^before  his  own  Personality, 


Fig.  2. — The  Ka  of  Rameses  II.,  represented  by  the  two-handed  staff, 
standing  behind  the  king  while  he  slays  his  enemies  before  Ra 
Harmakhis.     {From  Abu  Simbel.)  * 

which   bears   the    insignia   of  divinity,   the   staff    of 
command,  and  the  symbol  of  life,  the  ■¥*   dnkh  (fig.  3). 

*  Lepsius,   Denkmdler,   III.   186.     The  hands   of    the    Ka- 
staff  have  doubtless  a  common  origin  with  those  of  the  Ka- 

sign— LJ. 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL. 


IS 


To  it  the  king  presents  offerings  of  every  kind  and 
prefers  his  petition  for  gifts  of  the  gods  in  exchange 


Fig.  3. — Amenophis  III.  making  offerings  to  his  Ka.     {From  his 
temple  at  Soleb, )  * 

His  Personality  replies  :  "  I  give  unto  thee  all  Life, 
all  Stability,  all  Power,  all  Health,  and  all  Joy 
(enlargement    of    heart)  ;     I    subdue     for    thee    the 

*  Lepsius,  Denkmdler,  III.  87. 


l6  THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN    DOCTRINE   OF 

peoples  of  Nubia  (Khent),  so  that  thou  mayest  cut 
off  their  heads."  In  bas-reliefs  of  the  same  period 
which  represent  the  birth  of  Amenophis  III.,*  his 
Ka  is  born  at  the  same  time  as  the  king,  and 
both  are  presented  to  Amen  Ra,  as  two  boys  exactly 
alike  (fig.  4),  and  blessed  by  him.  About  this  time 
the  kings  began  to  build  temples  to  their  own 
Personalities,  and  appointed  priests  to  them ;  and 
from  time  to  time  the  sovereign  would  visit  his 
temple  to  implore  from  himself  his  own  protection, 
and  still  greater  gifts.  So  long  as  the  king  walked 
the  earth,  so  long  his  "  living  Ka,  lord  of  Upper  and 
Lower  Egypt,  tarried  in  his  dwelling,  in  the  Abode 
of  Splendour  (S?  n  ^^  DMty  \\  for  his  Ka 
was  himself,  independent  of  him,  superior  to  him, 
and  yet  his  counterpart  and  bound  up  with  him. 

The  disjunction  of  the  Personality  from  the  Person 
was  not,  however,  rigorously  and  systematically 
insisted  upon  ;  the  two  were  indeed  separate,  but 
were  so  far  one  as  to  come  into  being  only  through 
and  with  each  other.     A  man  lived  no  longer  than 

*  In  the  course  of  his  excavations  at  Der  el  Bahri,  for  the 
Egypt  Exploration  Fund,  M.  Naville  discovered  the  originals  of 
these  scenes  in  a  series  of  bas-reHefs  representing  the  birth 
of  Queen  Hatshepsu  which  were  plagiarised  by  Amenophis  III. 

t  LEP.SIUS,  Denkmdler,  III.  21,  129. 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL.  I9 

his   Ka  remained   with  him,  and  it  never  left   him 

until  the  moment  of  his  death.     But  there  was  this 

difference  in  their  reciprocal  relations :  the  Ka  could 

live  without  the  body,  but  the  body  could  not  live 

without  the  Ka.     Yet  this  does  not  imply  that  the 

Ka  was  a  higher,  a  spiritual  being ;  it  was  material 

in  just   the   same  way  as  the   body  itself,  needing 

food    and    drink   for   its   well-being,    and    suffering 

hunger  and  thirst  if  these  were  denied  it.     In  this 

respect   its   lot   was   the   common   lot   of    Egyptian 

gods ;    they   also   required    bodily    sustenance,    and 

were   sorely  put  to  it  if  offerings  failed   them   and 

their  food  and  drink  were  unsupplied. 

After  a  man's  death  his  Ka  became  his  Personality 

proper ;    prayers   and   offerings   were    made   to   the 

gods  that  they  might  grant  bread  and  wine,  meat 

and   milk,    and    all    good    things    needful    for    the 

sustenance  of  a  god  to  the  Ka   of  the   deceased.* 

*  Such  prayers  were  also  inscribed  on  funerary  stelae  in  order 
that  passers-by  might  repeat  them  for  the  benefit  of  the  dead. 
These  inscriptions  vary  but  little.  The  prayer  on  the  funerary 
tablet  of  Khemnekht  (now  in  the  Agram  Museum)  dates  from 
the  Thirteenth  Dynasty,  and  runs  as  follows :  "  O  every  scribe, 
every  Kherheb  (lector,  priestly  reciter),  all  ye  who  pass  by  this 
stele,  who  love  and  honour  your  gods,  and  would  have  your 
offices  to  flourish  (shine)  for  your  children,  say  ye :  *  Let  royal 
offerings   be    brought   unto    Osiris    for   the   Ka   of    the   priest 


20         THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN   DOCTRINE   OF 

Offerings  were  also  made  to  the  Ka  itself,  and  it 
was  believed  that  from  time  to  time  it  visited  the 
tomb  in  order  to  accept  the  food  there  provided 
for  it.  On  such  occasions  it  became  incorporate 
in  the  mummy,  which  began  to  live  and  grow 
(c-=^  q\  ^=^^^  r'Ad),  or  renew  itself  as  do  plants  and 
trees  (^^^~~^  □  f  renp\  and  became,  as  the  texts  oc- 
casionally  express  it,  "the  living  Ka  in  its  coffin." 
The  rich  founded  endowments  whose  revenues  were 
to  be  expended  to  all  time  in  providing  their  Kas 
with  food  offerings,  and  bequeathed  certain  sums 
for  the  maintenance  of  priests  to  attend  to  this ; 
large  staffs  of  officials  were  kept  up  to  provide  the 
necessaries  of  life  for  the  Personalities  of  the  dead  * 

Khemnekht.' "  For  an  account  of  the  development  of  the  formulae 
on  funerary  stelae,  see  Wiedemann,  Observations  stir  quelques 
steles  fu7ieraires  egyptiennes,  Le  Museon  X,  42,  199  et  seq. 

*  The  particulars  above  summarised  may  be  verified  from 
contracts  which  a  prince  {erpd-hd)  of  Siut  concluded  with  the 
priests  of  Anubis  under  the  Tenth  or  Eleventh  Dynasty  (discussed 
by  Maspero,  Transactions  of  the  Society  of  Biblical  Archceology^ 
VII.,  p.  6  et  seq.,  Etudes  de  Mythologie^  L,  p.  62  et  seq.,  and 
Erman,  ^g.  Zeitschr.,  1882,  p.  159  ff.,  the  best  publication  of 
these  inscriptions  being  that  by  Griffith,  Inscriptions  of  Siut 
and  Der  Rifeh,  London,  1889.  Similar  contracts  were  made  even 
in  the  times  of  the  pyramid-building  kings :  cf.  e.g.  Lepsius, 
Denk?ndler,  II.  3-7;  De  Roug6,  Inscriptions  hieroglyphiques,  pi.  I.; 
Mariette,  Les  Mastabahs^  P-  316  et  seq,) 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL.  21 

The  Ka  was  represented  by  statues  of  the  dead 
man  which  were  placed  within  his  tomb,  and  some- 
times in  temples  also  by  gracious  permission  of  the 
sovereign.*  Wherever  one  of  these  statues  stood, 
there  might  the  Ka  sojourn  and  take  part  in  Feasts 
of  Offerings  and  the  pleasures  of  earthly  life  ;  there 
even  seems  to  have  been  a  belief  that  it  might  be 
imprisoned  in  a  statue  by  means  of  certain  magic 
formulae.  Royal  statues  in  the  temples  were  destined 
to  the  use  of  the  royal  Kas,  the  many  statues  of 
the  same  king  in  one  temple  being  apparently  all 
intended  for  his  own  Ka  service,  f 

The  Egyptians,  holding  the  belief  that  the  statue 
of  a  human  being  represented  and  embodied  a  human 
K  A,  concluded  that  the  statues  of  the  gods  represented 
and  embodied  divine  Kas,  and  were  indeed  neither 
more  nor  less  than  the  Kas  of  the  gods.  Thus  the 
idea  of  divinity  became  entirely  anthropomorphic, 
and,  just  as  the  king  built  his  temple  not  to  himself 
but  to  his  Personality,  so  also  sanctuaries  were 
sometimes  dedicated  not   to   a   god   himself  but   to 

*  As  in  the  case  of  statues  found  in  the  temple  of  Ptah  at 
Memphis  (Mariette,  Mon.  div.^  pi.  27  b),  and  in  that  of  Amon  at 
Karnak  (Mariette,  Karnak,  pi.  8  f;  of.  Lepsius,  Auswahl,  pi.  1 1). 

t  This  striking  theory  was  first  broached  by  Maspero,  Rec.  de 
Trav.,  L,  p.  154;  Etudes  de  My thologie,  I.  p.  80. 


22  THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN   DOCTRINE   OF 

his  Personality.  For  example,  the  chief  temple  of 
Memphis  was  not  for  the  service  of  the  god  Ptah, 
— the  maker  of  the  world,  whom  the  Greeks  com- 
pared to  Hephaestos, — but  rather  for  that  of  his 
Ka.  I  Ptah  was  not  alone  among  the  gods  in  this 
respect.  The  pyramid  texts  show  that  even  in  the 
times  of  the  Fifth  and  Sixth  Dynasties  Thot,  Set, 
Horus,  and  other  gods  were  recognised  as  having 
Kas  ;  that  is  to  say,  each  was  supposed  to  be 
possessed  of  his  own  Personality  in  addition  to  him- 
self.* It  was  believed  that  the  divine  Ka,  this  image 
which  had  the  greater  likeness  to  man,  stood  nearer 
to  man  than  the  god  himself,  and  hence  in  the 
case  of  votive  stelae  dedicated  to  the  incarnation  of 
Ptah  in  the  sacred  Apis-bull  of  Memphis,  prayer 
for  the  divine  favour  and  blessings  is  not  as  a  rule 
addressed  to  the  Apis,  but  to  its  Ka.  It  is  a  very 
remarkable  fact  that  in  several  inscriptions  f  the  god 

*  We  find  occasional  mention  of  the  Ka  of  the  East  and  the 
Ka  of  the  West  (Wilkinson,  Manners  and  Customs^  2nd  ed., 
III.,  pp.  200,  201),  which  are  to  be  considered  as  being  the  Kas 
of  the  deities  of  the  East  and  of  the  West,  and  not  as  Kas  of 
the  abstract  conceptions  of  East  and  West. 

t  Lepsius,  Denkmdler,  III.   194,  1.  13;    Dumichen,  Tempel- 
inschriften,  L,  pi.  29 ;  Von  Bergmann,  Hierogl.  Insch.,  pi.  33 
pi.  61,  col.  2  ;  Renouf,   Transactions  of  the  Society  of  Biblical 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL.  23 

Ra  is  credited  with  no  less  than  seven  Bas  and 
fourteen  Kas,  corresponding  to  the  various  qualities 
or  attributes  pertaining  to  his  own  being,  and  which 
he  could  communicate  to  the  person  of  the  king ; 
such  as  :  wealth,  stability,  majesty,  glory,  might,  vic- 
tory, creative  power,  etc.* 

Thus  the  apprehension  of  the  Ka,  of  a  man's  Per- 
sonality, as  his  Doppelgdnger,  or  Double,  found  even 
in  some  of  the  oldest  texts,  acquired  a  far-reaching 
significance  which  extended  not  only  to  the  doctrine 
of  human  immortaHty  but  also  to  the  conception  of 
the  relations  of  gods  to  men. 

As  we  have  already  stated,  Ipach  man  had  a  Ka 

so  long  as  he  was  alive,  but  at  his  death  it  left  him 

and  led  an  independent  existence.     Only  after  long 

wanderings  did  he  meet  it  again  in  the  world  to  come, 

and  we  still  possess  the  prayer  with  which  he  was  to 

greet  it,  beginning  with  the  words,  "  Hail  to  thee  who 

wast  my  Ka  during  life !     I  come  linto  thee,"  etc.f 

A?xhcBology,  VL,  pp.  504  et  seq. ;  Brugsch,  Dictionary^  Supplt., 
pp.  997  et  seq.,  1230.  i 

^  Cf.  I  Chron.  xxix.  11,  12;  Isa.  xi.  2. 

t  This  prayer  is  contained  in  that  part  oi  The  Book  of  the 
Dead,  chap,  cv.,  entitled  Chapter  whereby  tfie  KA  of  a  person  is 
satisfied  in  the  Nether  world:  "Hail  to  thee  who  wast  my  Ka 
during  life  !  Lo  !  I  come  unto  thee,  I  arise  resplendent,  I  labour, 
I  am  strong,  I  am  hale  (7'<2r.,  I  pass  on),  I  bring  grains  of  incense, 


24         THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN   DOCTRINE   OF 

The  second  immortal  part  of  man  was  his  heart 
((I  J  O  db),'^  The  heart  was  removed  from  the  body 
by  the  embalmers,  and  the  texts  give  no  definite  ex- 
planation as  to  what  became  of  it.     During  certain 

I  am  purified  thereby,  I  purify  thereby  that  which  goeth  forth 
from  thee.  This  conjuration  of  evil  which  I  say  ;  this  warding 
off  of  evil  which  I  perform  ;  (this  conjuration)  is  not  made 
against  me  (?)  "  The  conjuration  runs  as  follows :  "  I  am  that 
amulet  of  green  felspar,  the  necklace  of  the  god  Ra,  which  is 
given  (var.,  which  I  gave)  unto  them  who  are  upon  the  horizon. 
They  flourish,  I  flourish,  my  Ka  flourishes  even  as  they,  my 
duration  of  life  flourishes  even  as  they,  my  Ka  has  abundance 
of  food  even  as  they.  The  scale  of  the  balance  rises.  Truth 
rises  high  to  the  nose  of  the  god  Ra  in  that  day  on  which  my 
Ka  is  where  I  am  (?)  My  head  and  my  arm  are  made  (?)  to 
where  I  am  (?)  I  am  he  whose  eye  seeth,  whose  ears  hear ; 
I  am  not  a  beast  of  sacrifice.  The  sacrificial  formulae  proceed 
where  I  am,  for  the  upper  ones  " — otherwise  said,  "  for  the  upper 
ones  of  heaven."  The  funerary  papyrus  of  Sutimes  (Naville, 
Todtenbuch,  I.,  pi.  117)  contains  the  following  addition  at  the 
end  of  this  chapter:  "  I  enter  (?)  unto  thee  (to  the  Ka  ?). 
I  am  pure,  the  Osiris  is  justified  against  his  enemies."  The 
accompanying  vignette  for  this  chapter  shows  the  deceased 
as  worshipping  or  sacrificing  before  the  KA-sign  on  a  standard. 
Occasionally  we  find  the  Ka  sign  represented  as  enclosing 
pictures  of  offerings,  a  form  explained  by  the  common  double 
meaning  of  the  word  Ka,  which  signifies  both  "  Double  "  Sindfood. 

*  In  the  religious  texts  the  heart  is  called  both  !)  J)  O  1  ^^^ 
and  __^  ^^  O"  hcitt.  Sometimes,  as  in  The  Book  of  the  Dead, 
chap.  xxvi.  et  seq.,  the  two  were  differentiated ;  but,  generally 
speaking,  the  two  terms  appear  to  have  been  synonymous. 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL.  2J 

periods  of  Egyptian  history,  but  still  comparatively 
rarely,  it  was  enclosed,  as  were  the  rest  of  the  viscera, 
in  special  alabaster,  limestone,  or  wooden  vases,  of 
which  four  were  placed  with  the  mummy  in  its  grave. 
These  vases  are  generally  but  most  erroneously  called 
"  Canopic  "  vases.  They  usually  date  from  the  times 
of  the  New  Empire,  but  we  have  some  few  dating 
from  the  Ancient  Empire.  In  other  cases  the  viscera 
were  replaced  within  the  body  after  its  embalmment, 
and  with  them  waxen  images  of  the  four  genii  of 
the  dead  as  their  guardian  divinities.  But  for  the 
most  part  documents  do  not  afford  us  any  informa- 
tion as  to  what  was  done  with  the  material  heart. 
Perhaps  the  priests  took  measures  for  its  disappear- 
ance in  order  to  furnish  some  tangible  foundation 
for  their  doctrine  concerning  the  heart.  Certain 
statements  of  Greek  writers  seem  to  imply  some 
such  proceeding.  According  to  these  authorities  the 
viscera,  which  must  have  included  the  heart,  were 
cast  into  the  Nile,  because  they  were  designated  as 
the  source  of  all  human  error.  Porphyry  gives  us 
even  the  form  of  the  prayer  which  was  repeated 
when  the  chest  containing  the  intestines  was  pre- 
sented before  the  Sun ;  and  if  the  text  of  this 
prayer  has  not  hitherto  been  confirmed  from  original 


28  THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN    DOCTRINE   OF 

documents  it  is  yet  so  thoroughly  Egyptian  in  cha- 
racter that  its  authenticity  cannot  be  doubted.* 

*  Plutarch,  Septem  sap.  conviv.^  p.  159  B:  "We  then,  said 
1  ■'  (Diales),  "  render  these  tributes  to  the  belly  (r^  yaorpt).  But 
if  Solon  or  any  one  else  has  any  allegation  to  make  we  will 
listen."  "  By  all  means,"  said  Solon,  "  lest  we  should  appear 
more  senseless  than  the  Egyptians,  who  cutting  up  the  dead 
body  showed  [the  entrails]  to  the  sun,  then  cast  them  into  the 
river,  but  of  the  rest  of  the  body,  as  now  become  pure,  they 
took  care.  For  in  reality  this  [the  belly]  is  the  pollution  of  our 
flesh,  and  the  Hell,  as  in  Hades, — full  of  dire  streams,  and  of 
wind  and  fire  confused  together,  and  of  dead  things." 

Plutarch,  De  esu  carnium  orat.^  ii.,  p.  996,  38 :  "  As  the 
Egyptians,  taking  out  from  the  dead  the  belly  {rj]v  KoCkiav)  and 
cutting  it  up  before  the  sun,  cast  it  away,  as  the  cause  of  all 
the  sins  which  the  man  has  committed  ;  in  like  manner  that  we 
ourselves,  cutting  out  gluttony  and  bloodthirstiness,  should  purify 
the  rest  of  our  life." 

Porphyry,  De  abst,  iv.,  10:  "When  they  embalm  those  of 
the  noble  that  have  died,  together  with  their  other  treatment  of 
the  dead  body,  they  take  out  the  belly  (r^i/  kolXUv),  and  put 
it  into  a  coffer,  and  holding  the  coffer  to  the  sun  they  protest,  one 
of  the  embalmers  making  a  speech  on  behalf  of  the  dead.  This 
speech,  which  Euphantus  translated  from  his  native  language, 
is  as  follows :  "  O  Lord,  the  Sun,  and  all  ye  gods  who  give  life 
to  men,  receive  me  and  make  me  a  companion  to  the  eternal 
gods.  For  the  gods,  whom  my  parents  made  known  to  me, 
as  long  time  as  I  have  had  my  life  in  this  world  I  have  continued 
to  reverence,  and  those  who  gave  birth  to  my  body  I  have  ever 
honoured.  And  for  the  rest  of  men,  I  have  neither  slain  any, 
nor  defrauded  any  of  anything  entrusted  to  me,  nor  committed 
any  other  wicked  act,  but  if  I  haply  in  my  life  have  sinned  at 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL.  29 

But  the  immortal  heart  of  a  man,  which  stood  in 
a  similar  relationship  to  his  material  heart  as  his  Ka 
to  the  whole  body,  left  him  at  death  and  journeyed 
on  alone  through  the  regions  of  the  other  world  till 
it  reached  the  "  Abode  of  Hearts."  Its  first  meeting 
with  the  deceased  to  whom  it  had  belonged  was  in 
the  Hall  of  Judgment,  where  it  stood  forth  as  his 
accuser ;  for  in  it  all  his  good  and  evil  thoughts  had 
found  expression  during  his  lifetime.  They  had  not 
originated  there,  for  the  heart  was  essentially  divine 
and  pure,  but  it  had  of  necessity  harboured  and 
known  them,*  and  therefore  it  was  called  upon  to 
testify  concerning  the  man's  former  thoughts  and 
deeds  before  Osiris,  judge  of  the  dead. 

In  the  meantime  the  mummy  was  without  heart, 
and  had  become  lifeless  and  dead  ;  for  to  pierce  the 
heart  of  anything  was  equivalent  to  utterly  destroying 

all,  by  either  eating  or  drinking  what  was  unlawful,  not  on  my 
own  account  did  I  sin,  but  on  account  of  these  (showing  the 
coffer  in  which  the  belly  [17  yaarrrjp]  lay)."'  And  having  said  these 
things  he  throws  it  into  the  river ;  but  the  rest  of  the  body,  as 
pure,  he  embalms.  Thus  they  thought  that  they  needed  to 
excuse  themselves  to  the  Deity  on  account  of  what  they  had 
eaten  and  drunk,  and  therefore  to  reproach  the  belly." 

*  It  was  in  this  sense  that  the  Egyptians  regarded  the  heart 
as  the  seat  of  the  feehngs,  and  spoke  of  the  heart  as  rejoicing, 
as  mourning,  as  weeping. 


30         THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN    DOCTRINE   OF 

it.  The  Osiris,  too  (to  which  we  shall  presently 
return),  would  have  shared  the  fate  of  the  mummy 
had  the  device  not  been  conceived  of  providing  the 
latter  with  an  artificial  heart  in  place  of  its  own 
original  one,  which  had  returned  to  the  gods.  The 
provisional   heart    was   represented    by   an   artificial 


f  fSs.^^'Mfe^^  y 


Fig.  6.— A  heart  scarab.* 

scarabaeus,  generally  made  of  hard  greenish  stone 
in  the  image  of  the  beetle,  which  was  a  symbol  of 
genesis  and  resurrection  (fig.  6).  Underneath  it  was 
made  flat,  and  inscribed  with  magic  formulae,t  that 
it  might  be  the  substitute  for  the  dead  man's  heart, 

*  The  illustration  is  taken  from  photographs  of  a  scarab  in 
the  Edwards  collection  at  University  College,  London. 

t  For  the  translation  of  chap,  xxx  b.  of  The  Book  of  the  Dead, 
which  formed  the  usual  inscriptions  on  heart  scarabs,  see  p.  53. 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL.  3 1 

and  also  ensure  his  resurrection  by  virtue  of  its 
form.  But  when  his  own  heart  was  restored  to  him 
the  scarabaeus  lost  its  significance.  Like  all  the  rest 
of  the  amulets  which  the  Egyptians  gave  to  their 
dead,  its  efficacy  only  availed  for  the  space  of  time 
intervening:  between  death  and  the  reunion  of  those 


Fig.  7. — The  Ba  as  a  bird. 

elements  which  death  had  separated.  When  once 
the  resurrection  had  taken  place  there  was  no  further 
need  of  amulets,  nor  any  hurt  through  lack  of  them. 

Another  immortal  part  of  man  was  the  ^^^, 
^  '^^^  ^^'  "^^*  ^^'^^  conception  most  nearly  corre- 
sponds to  our  "  soul,"  for  it  was  a  being  which,  on  the 
death  of  the  man  in  whom  it  had  dwelt,  left  him  in 
order  to  fly  to  the  gods,  to  whom  it  was  closely  akin, 


32 


THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN   DOCTRINE   OF 


and  with  whom  it  abode  when  not  united  to  the  man. 
But,  nevertheless,  the  Ba  was  neither  immaterial  nor 
able  to  dispense  with  food  and  drink  *  It  bore  the 
form  of  a  human-headed  bird  (fig.  7),  sometimes  with 
hands  (figs.  10,  14) ;  or  of  a  ram-headed  scarabaeus 
(fig,  8).     From  the  fifteenth  to  the  eleventh  century 

B.C.  it  was  preferably  repre- 
y^t^il^Efe^k.  sented  under  the  second  form 
v^^M3^^^^^^     which   is   really  nothing   more 

than    its    hieroglyphic    symbol. 

The     phonetic    value    of    the 

ram,  ^^5?»  ^^  ^^y  ^^^  ^^  ^^^ 
scarabaeus,  ©,  kheper^  which 
latter  means  to  be,  to  become ; 
and  the  composite  figure  of  the 
ram-headed  scarabaeus  signifies, 
therefore,  something  like  "he 
who  has  become  a  soul." 
It  is  otherwise  with  the  first  image,  which  really 

represents  the  soul  as  it  was  imagined  by  the  Egyptians. 

We   have  sculptured   figures   and    drawings  (fig.  9) 

*  The  possession  of  the  formula  in  chap,  cxlviii.  of  The  Book 
of  the  Dead^  from  line  8,  ensured  abundance  (of  food)  to  the 
Ba  of  the  dead. 

t  Illustrations  7  and  8  are  taken  from  photographs  of  objects 
in  the  Edwards  Museum  at  University  College. 


Fig.  8. — Ram-headed 
scarabaeus.  f 


THE   IMMORTALITY  OF   THE   SOUL. 


33 


showing  the  little  soul  perched  by  the  sarcophagus, 
touching  the  mummy,  and  bidding  it  farewell  before 
rising  to   the   gods.*      In   other  scenes   the   soul   is 


Fig.  9. — The  Ba  visiting  the  mummy  on  its  funeral  couch.     {From 
*'  The  Book  of  the  Dead") 


depicted   as   it  comes    flying  from  heaven  with  the 
sign  of  life  in  its  hand,  and  approaching  the  grave 

*  See  The  Book  of  the  Dead,  Naville's  edition,  pis.  4,  97,  loi, 
104 ;  Lepsius'  edition,  pis.  33,  etc.,  etc. 


34         I'HE  ANCIENT  EGYPTIAN   DOCTRINE  OF 


A 


1 


to  visit  the  mummy ;  or  as  flying  down 
into  the  vault  with  the  offerings  which 
it  had  found  at  the  door  of  the  tomb, 
bringing  bread  in  one  hand  and  a  jar  of 
water  in  the  other,  as  food  and  drink 
for  the  body  which  once  invested  it 
(fig.  10). 

This  conception  of  the  soul  as  a  kind 
of  bird  is  noteworthy  when  compared 
with  the  ideas  which  other  nations  have 
formed  of  it.  The  Greeks  sometimes 
represented  the  elScoXoVy  or  soul,  as  a 
small  winged  human  figure  (fig.  ii);  in 
Roman  times  it  was  imagined  as  a  butter- 
fly (fig.   12);    and  in  mediaeval  reliefs  and 

pictures  we 
see  it  leaving 
the  mouth  of 
the  dead  man 
as  a  child  (fig. 
13),  or  a  little 
naked  man.* 

Fig.  10.— The  Ba  flying  down  the  shaft  of  the       *  See,       e.g., 
tomb  and  bringing  offerings  to  the  mummy,    illustration    and 

(From  "  The  Book  of  the  Dead.'')  _  ,    _ 

^  -^  Orcagna  s  fresco 

of  the  Triumph  of  Death,  in  the  Campo  Santo  of  Pisa. 


-uT  2  _c*  T3  tS 

*^ ^  u  - e^ 

p^  I?  C  tn  t;  « 
.    -^   rt   «   en 

SC  -M  —    4) 

s  S  *^  ii  S3.5 
^  -S  -^  ??  o  s 

(U    ^TS 

•^  S  c 


s.^ 


tUD 


U  TS  b'      ^  - 

r*">  in  >  ^ 
O  in  -*  -5  (^ 

c  .b?  cu  >  >  £ 
O  f-^  o  -^  c 
U  ^    i)  Xi      •  *-C 

>  B 

^  o 
C  in 


-v^-:^ 


-Ho 


Wh-S 


^  f^     O     ^      _ 

"  p  ^   .-S  I 

<u  bjD  S-*  Tj ":?  -i* 

-^       is  <u  -^  o 


en   Pi  "tl 

o 


-G 

fl)   ro  <ii 

^    <U  ^-  >» 

O  __  "IS  T3  13    V) 

a  G  o  i)  <*^ 

CO   rt  'o  ^  f^   bo 

3c/5  ^    2  JJ   tn 

g    u    rt    O  c    <U 

2  ^   ««  ^  S   a 

'V  &  "  "  >,-s 

11  ^  OS  fii  rt  Pi 


Fig.  13. — The  soul  of  a  man  leaving  him  at  his  death  in  the  form  of 
a  naked  child,  and  received  by  an  angel.  {From  the  porch  of  the 
cathedral  church  of  St.  Trophimus^  at  Aries.) 


THE   IMMORTALITY    OF   THE   SOUL.  4I 

The  latter  form  recalls  that  of  the  Egyptian  Ka, 
although  the  idea  which  it  embodies  reminds  one 
rather  of  the  Ba. 

The  ^  5.  V  S  y>  Sahu,  also  was  considered  as 
immortal.  This  is  invariably  depicted  as  a  swathed 
mummy,  and  represented  the  form  which  the  man 
wore  upon  earth.  Originally  it  was  related  to  the 
Ka,  but  whereas  the  latter  was  a  complete  Per- 
sonality, the  Sahu  was  nothing  but  a  hull,— a  form 
without  contents.  Yet  this  also  was  of  the  gods  and 
imperishable,  returning  to  its  heavenly  home  when 
death  had  set  it  free.  Since  the  body,  or  Kha,* 
had  also  the  same  form,  it  naturally  came  about 
that  when  the  mummy  was  mentioned  in  religious 
texts  as  reanimated  by  the  Ka  it  was  frequently 
confounded  with  the  Sahu.  In  this  sense  it  is  said 
that  "  the  SAHU  lives  in  the  Sarcophagus  (or  in  the 
underworld),  it  grows  {rM),  it  renews  itself  (renp)!'  t 
But  in  more  precise  texts  the  two  things  are  kept 
distinct,  as,  e.g.,  "  the  Ba  (soul)  sees  its  Kha,  it  rests 
upon  its  SAHU.t     At  such  times  the  Ba  had  power 

*  See  p.  10. 

t  Von  Bergmann,  Sarkophag  des  Panehemisis,  I.,  pp.  11,  15, 
24 ;  PiERRET,  Insc.  du  Lotivre,  II.,  p.  23  ;  Mariette,  Denderah, 
iv.,  62^. 

t   The  Book  of  the'Dead,  Ixxxix.  6, 


42         THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN    DOCTRINE   OF 

over  the  SAhu,  and,  as  is  said  on  the  Sarcophagus 
of  Panehemisis,  "the  Sahu  lives  at  the  command 
of  the  Ba."  * 

In  close  connection  with  the  SAhO  was  the 
T  "^^  H  H  J  ^  T  '  K^^l^j  ^h^  shadow,  represented 
as  a>fan,  or  sunshade  (fig.  14),  in  scenes  professing 
to  portray  the  next  world,  f 

As  all  earthly  forms  must  needs  have  their 
shadows,  such  was  also  the  case  with  things  in  the 
world  to  come  ;  there,  too,  the  sun  shone  and  all 
the  optical  phenomena  of  earth  were  repeated.  But, 
not  content  to  accept  this  as  a  simple  fact,  the 
Egyptians  ascribed  separate  existences  both  to  the 
shadows  of  the  dead  and  to  those  of  gods  and  genii. 
According  to  Egyptian  belief  a  shadow  might  live  on 
independently,  apart  from  its  owner,  and  this  was 
exactly  what  it  was  supposed  to  do  at  the  moment 
when  death  had  taken  place ;  then  the  Kha'ib  went 
forth  alone  to  appear  in  the  realm  of  the  gods. 
This  Ancient  Egyptian  idea  of  the  independent 
existence  of  a  man's  shadow  recalls    to   our   minds 

*  Von  Bergmann,  Sarkophag  des  Panehemisis^  I.,  p.  37,  where 
the  translation  is  not  quite  accurately  given. 

t  In  Transactions  of  the  Society  of  Biblical  ArchcBology,  VIII., 
p.  386  et  seq.^  Birch  has  collected  passages  bearing  on  this 
point. 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL. 


43 


Chamisso's    story   of   Peter    Schlemihl,   published    in 
1823.* 

The  Ka,  the  Ab,  the  Ba,  the  Sahu,  and  the  Khaib 
constituted  the  chief  elements  of  that  which  was 
immortal  in  man,  but  others  were  also  occasionally 
included,  especially  one  which  was  called  the  Khu, 


mimmmmmm 


Fig.  14. — Ba  and  Khaib.     {From  ^^The  Book  of  the  Dead.'') 


V^' 


n,   z,e.    the   Luminous. t     To  these,  however, 
there  is  less  frequent  reference  ;  they  were  of  import- 

*  On  primitive  beliefs  as  to  a  man's  shadow  being  a  vital  part 
of  himself,  see  Frazer,  The  Golden  Bough,  Vol.  I.,  pp.  141-44. 

t  See  Maspkro,  Recueil  de  Travaux  relatifs  a  V Egypt,  HI., 
p.  105  et  seq. ;  and  Histoire  Ancie7tne  des  Peuples  de  V Orient, 
Vol.  I.,  p.  114.  In  The  Book  of  the  Dead,  chap.  Ixxxix.,  3,  the 
Khu  is  mentioned  in  connection  with  the  Ba  ;  in  chap,  cxlix.,  40, 
with  the  Khaib  ;  and  in  chap,  xcii.,  5,  with  both. 


44         THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN   DOCTRINE   OF 

ance  in  local  cults  only,  and  were  either  included 
among  the  parts  already  mentioned  or  were  so 
vaguely  defined  that  they  may  be  safely  left  out 
of  account  in  treating  of  the  soul  as  conceived  by 
the  Egyptians  without  danger  of  our  conception 
being  falsified  by  the  omission. 


When  the  immortal  was  thus  resolved  into  its 
component  parts  at  death,  what  then  became  of 
the  human  individuality  which  had  resulted  from 
their  combined  action,  and  how  could  its  different 
parts  find  each  other  again  in  the  next  world,  in 
order  to  form  the  new  man  of  the  resurrection  ? 
The  Egyptians  had  evolved  a  very  simple  solution 
of  this  problem,  although  one  which,  according 
to  our  mode  of  thought,  stands  in  direct  con- 
tradiction to  their  doctrine  of  the  soul.  It  was 
assumed  that  in  addition  to  his  immortal  elements 
the  man  as  a  person  of  a  particular  appearance  and 
character  was  also  endowed  with  a  kind  of  deathless- 
ness,  which  seems  to  have  held  good  only  for  a 
time,  and  not  for  ever.  To  this  conception  of  a 
dead  man,  in  whom  soul  and  life  were  lacking  but 
who  in  the  interim  still  possessed  existence,  feeling, 
and  thought,  the  Egyptians  gave  the  name  of  OsiRlS. 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF   THE  SOUL.  45 

Osiris  was  the  first  divine  King  of  Egypt  who 
reigned  in  true  human  likeness ;  he  civilised  the 
Egyptians,  instructed  them  in  agriculture,  gave  them 
laws,  and  taught  them  true  religion.  After  a  long 
and  blessed  reign  he  fell  a  prey  to  the  machinations 
of  his  brother  Set  (Typhon),  and  having  been  slain 
was  constrained  to  descend  into  the  underworld, 
where  he  evermore  lived  and  reigned  as  judge  and 
king  of  the  dead.  His  fate  of  death  was  the  fate 
of  all  men.  Every  one,  when  his  earthly  pilgrimage 
was  ended,  must  descend  into  the  underworld  by 
the  gates  of  death  ;  but  each  man  hoped  to  rise  again, 
even  as  Osiris  had  risen,  to  lead  henceforth  the  life 
of  the  blessed.  In  this  hope  men  called  their  dead 
Osiris,  just  as  Germans  speak  of  their  dead  as 
"  blessed," — hoping  that  blessedness  may  indeed  be 
their  lot.  Death  had  not  changed  Osiris ;  as  he 
had  been  king  on  earth,  so  he  was  king  in  the 
world  beyond  death.  In  the  same  way  man,  too, 
remained  that  which  he  had  been  here ;  death 
merely  made  a  break  in  his  life,  without  altering 
any  of  his  conditions  of  existence. 

The  relation  subsisting  between  a  man's  OsiRlS 
and  his  mummy  was  not  clearly  apprehended,  even 
by  the  Egyptians  themselves.      Identical  they  were 


46 


THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN    DOCTRINE   OF 


not — that  fact  is  obviously  implied  by  the  texts, 
which  never  once  substitute  the  mummy  for  the 
Osiris  ;  men  knew  also  from  experience  that  no 
mummy  had  ever  left  its  place  of  embalmment,  or 
the  tomb,  to  journey  on  into  the  next  world.      Yet 


Fig.  15. — Hypocephalus,  from  a  drawing  by  Dr.  W.  H.  Rylands. 

mummy  and  OsiRIS  were  nevertheless  not  entirely 
different  and  distinct ;  both  had  the  same  appearance 
and  the  same  character.  Moreover,  the  texts  describe 
the  Osiris  as  resembling  the  mummy  in  appearance 
while  really  differing  from  it,  and  the  embalmers 
equipped  the  mummy  as  though  it  were  called  upon 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL.  47 

to  journey  forth  as  the  OsiRIS.  The  inherent  contra- 
diction in  all  this  arose  principally  from  the  fact 
thafme  Egyptian  hoped  and  believed  that  shortly 
after  death  he  would  arise  again,  complete  in  flesh 
and  blood  as  he  had  lived  upon  earth ;  whereas 
experience  contradicted  his  creed,  for  it  showed  him 
that  the  mummy  never  did  and  never  could  leave  the 
earth.  He  extricated  himself  from  the  dilemma  by 
providing  the  mummy  with  a  Doppelgdnger :  its  own 
perfect  counterpart,  yet  not  itself.  When  once  we 
have  familiarised  ourselves  with  this  singular  idea 
we  find  in  it  a  simple  key  to  all  the  riddles  of 
the  Osiris. 

The  mummy  was  provided  with  an  artificial  heart 
in  the  shape  of  a  scarabaeus,*  because  the  OSIRIS 
could  not  live  without  one,  and  also  with  various 
amulets,  by  virtue  of  every  one  of  which  demons  of 
the  next  world  could  be  overcome.  A  stuccoed  disc 
of  papyrus,  linen,  or  bronze,  which,  by  the  figures  and 
formulae  inscribed  upon  it,  had  mystic  power  to  pre- 
serve the  needful  warmth  of  life  to  the  Osiris  (fig.  15), 
was  placed  under  the  head  of  the  mummy.f    The  soles 

*  See  p.  30. 

t  A  certain  part  in  the  religious  life  of  our  own  time  has  been 
played  by  a  similar  "  Hypocephalus,"  viz.,  the  Mormon  Scriptures 


48  THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN    DOCTRINE   OF 

of  the  feet  which  had  trodden  the  mire  of  earth 
were  removed  in  order  that  the  OsiRIS  might  tread 
the  Hall  of  Judgment  with  pure  feet ;  and  the  gods 
were  prayed  to  grant  milk  to  the  OSIRIS  that  he 
might  bathe  his  feet  in  it  and  so  assuage  the  pain 
which  the  removal  of  the  soles  must  needs  have 
caused  him.  And,  finally,  the  soles  which  had  been 
excised  were  placed  within  the  mummy  in  order  that 
the  OSIRIS  might  find  them  to  hand  for  the  completion 
of  his  Personality.*  That  nothing  might  be  wanting 
to  this  Personality,  the  gods  were  besought  that  the 
mummy  should  not  sufifer  earthly  corruption,  and  it 
was  held  to  be  of  supreme  importance  that  flesh  and 
bones,  muscles  and  limbs  should  all  remain  in  place. 
With  the  mummy  were  also  placed  The  Book  of  the 
Deady  as  well  as  other  religious  and  mystic  texts  needed 
by  the  OSIRIS  for  his  guidance  through  the  regions 
beyond  the  grave,  and  from  which  he  might  learn 
the  prayers  which  had  to  be  spoken  in  due  order 
and  place  according  to  strict  prescriptions.     In  short, 

(cf.  Joseph  Smith,  A  Pearl  of  Great  Price,  1851,  p.  7).  For 
particulars  of  the  Hypocephalus  of  the  illustration  see  Proceedings 
of  the  Society  of  Biblical  Archceo  logy,  Vol.  VI.,  p.  52,  and  plate. 

*  See  Ebers,  ^g.  Zeitschr.,  1867,  p.  108;  1871,  p.  48; 
Wiedemann,  Proceedings  of  the  Orientalist  Congress  at  St. 
Etienne,  II.,  p.  155. 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL.  49 

the  mummy  was  treated  precisely  as  though  it 
were  an  OsiRIS.  But  the  difference  was  great :  the 
mummy  remained  within  the  sarcophagus  in  the 
sepulchral  chamber,  while  the  OsiRlS  proceeded  on 
his  way. 

The  journey  of  the  OsiRIS,  treated  at  wearisome 
length,  forms  the  favourite  subject  of  Egyptian 
texts,  and  to  this  is  devoted  the  largest  and  best 
known  work  in  the  religious  literature  of  the  nation  : 
the  compilation  called  by  us  The  Book  of  the  Dead, 
This  book  contains  no  systematic  account  of  the 
journey,  such  as  the  analogy  of  similar  literatures  might 
lead  us  to  expect,  but  exhibits  it  in  a  series  of  discon- 
nected stages  by  giving  the  prayers  which  the  OSIRIS 
must  repeat  when  passing  through  different  parts  of 
the  underworld,  or  on  encountering  certain  genii  there. 
A  chapter  is  devoted  to  each  prayer,  but  the  chapters 
do  not  follow  each  other  in  the  order  in  which  the 
prayers  were  to  be  used.  The  Egyptians  never 
attained  to  any  clear  idea  of  the  Osirian  underworld  ; 
the  same  confusion  and  obscurity  reigned  over  it  as 
over  their  whole  conception  of  the  unseen  world  and 
of  deity.  They  pondered  deeply  over  a  series  of 
separate  problems  without  being  able  to  unite  the 
results     into    one    consistent    whole,    which    should 

4 


50         THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN   DOCTRINE  OF 

command  acceptance,  or  to  form  any  definite  and 
permanent  topography  of  the  regions  beyond  the 
tomb.  Hence  there  is  no  fixed  sequence  for  the 
chapters  of  The  Book  of  the  Dead)  the  order  varies 
materially  in  the  different  manuscripts  to  which  we 
are  indebted  for  our  knowledge  of  the  work.  The 
number  of  chapters  in  the  different  copies  also  varies  ; 
while  in  some  it  is  small,  in  others,  as  in  the  Ptolemaic 
copy  for  a  certain  Aufankh,  published  by  Lepsius, 
it  reaches  to  one  hundred  and  sixty-five.  Since  there 
was  no  fixed  rule  as  to  order  or  number,  priest  or 
scribe  might  make  a  selection  of  such  chapters  as  he 
or  the  family  of  the  deceased  held  to  be  the  most 
essential,  and  each  was  at  liberty  to  form  for  himself 
a  more  or  less  modified  conception  of  the  character- 
istics of  the  underworld. 

We  cannot  here  follow  the  OSIRIS  through  all  the 
details  of  his  journey,  but  must  be  content  to  know 
that  according  to  the  account  in  The  Book  of  the 
Dead  he  issued  victorious  from  all  his  trials,  over- 
came all  enemies  whom  he  encountered,  and  was 
ushered  at  length  into  the  Hall  of  the  Double  Truth, 
and  received  by  the  goddess  of  Truth.  Here  also 
he  found  the  chief  gods  of  the  Osirian  cycle  gathered 
together,  and  the  forty-two  assessors  of  Divine  Justice 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL.  5 1 

near  the  canopy  under  which  the  god  Osiris  was 
enthroned.  Then  the  deceased  spoke,  and  proceeded 
to  recite  the  "  Negative  Confession " — a  denial  of 
sins  of  commission — declaring  that  he  had  not  been 
guilty  of  certain  definite  sins,  and  denying  one  or 
another  particular  form  of  guilt  to  each  of  the 
assessors.  He  had  not  done  evil,  had  not  robbed, 
nor  murdered,  nor  lied,  not  caused  any  to  weep, 
not   injured   the  property  of  the  gods,  and  so  on.* 

*  The  "Negative  Confession"  forms  chap.  cxxv.  oi  The  Book 
of  the  Dead,  and  varies  slightly  in  different  copies.  The  fol- 
lowing is  Renouf's  translation  of  the  chapter  as  it  appears  in 
a  Nineteenth  Dynasty  papyrus  (see  The  Papyrus  of  Ani,  London, 
1 890) : — "  I  am  not  a  doer  of  what  is  wrong.  I  am  not  a 
plunderer.  I  am  not  a  robber.  I  am  not  a  slayer  of  men.  I 
do  not  stint  the  quantity  of  corn.  I  am  not  a  niggard.  I  do  not 
seize  the  property  of  the  gods.  I  am  not  a  teller  of  lies.  I  am 
not  a  monopoliser  of  food.  I  am  no  extortioner.  I  am  not 
unchaste.  I  am  not  the  cause  of  others'  tears.  I  am  not  a 
dissembler.  I  am  not  a  doer  of  violence.  I  am  not  of 
domineering  character.  I  do  not  pillage  cultivated  land.  I 
am  not  an  eavesdropper.  I  am  not  a  chatterer.  I  do  not 
dismiss  a  case  through  self-interest.  I  am  not  unchaste  with 
women  or  men.  I  am  not  obscene.  I  am  not  an  exciter 
of  alarms.  I  am  not  hot  in  speech.  I  do  not  turn  a  deaf  ear 
to  the  words  of  righteousness.  I  am  not  foul-mouthed.  I  am 
not  a  striker.  I  am  not  a  quarreller.  I  do  not  revoke  my 
purpose.  I  do  not  multiply  clamour  in  reply  to  words.  I  am 
not  evil-minded  or  a  doer  of  evil.     I  am  not  a  reviler  of  the 


52 


THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN   DOCTRINE  OF 


The  judges  heard  all  in  silence,  giving  no  sign 
either  of  approval  or  disapproval  ;  but  when  the 
confession  was  ended  the  heart  of  the  deceased  was 
brought  forward  and  laid  in   the  scales  against  the 


lb 


Fig.  i6. — The  weighing  of  the  dead  man's  heart  against  the  feather 
symbolic  of  Maat,  the  goddess  of  Truth.  {From  *'  The  Book  of 
the  Dead.") 

image  or  symbol  of  Truth.  The  weighing  was 
superintended    by    the    gods     Anubis    and     Horus, 

king.  I  put  no  obstruction  upon  the  water.  I  am  not  a  bawler. 
I  am  not  a  reviler  of  the  God.  1  am  not  fraudulent.  I  am  not 
sparing  in  offerings  to  the  gods.  I  do  not  deprive  the  dead 
of  the  funeral  cakes.  I  do  not  take  away  the  cakes  of  the  child, 
or  profane  the  god  of  my  locality.  I  do  not  kill  sacred 
animals," 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL.  Sj 

while  Thot,  the  scribe  of  the  gods,  stood  by  ready 
to  record  the  result  (fig.  i6)* 

This  was  the  time  for  the  deceased  anxiously  to 
call  upon  his  heart  in  the  prescribed  formula  from 
The     Book    of   the    Dead,-\    not     to     bear    witness 

*  On  the  Egyptian  Goddess  of  Truth,  see  Wiedemann,  La 
Deesse  Mad,  in  the  A?tnales  dii  Musee  Guimet,  x.,  pp.  561  et 
seq.  With  regard  to  the  meaning  of  the  Egyptian  name  and 
word  Madt,  which  is  generally  translated  "  truth,  or  justice," 
Renouf  has  said  :  "  The  Egyptians  recognised  a  divinity  in  those 
cases  only  where  they  perceived  the  presence  of  a  fixed  Law, 
either  of  permanence  or  change.  The  earth  abides  for  ever, 
and  so  do  the  heavens.  Day  and  night,  months,  seasons,  and 
years  succeed  each  other  with  unfailing  regularity  ;  the  stars 
are  not  less  constant  in  their  course,  some  of  them  rising  and 
setting  at  fixed  intervals,  and  others  eternally  circling  round 
the  pole  in  an  order  which  never  is  disturbed.  This  regularity^ 
which  is  the  constitutive  character  of  the  Egyptian  divinity,  was 
called  .==^  vjj  Madt.    The  gods  were  said  to  be  itebic  madt, 

'  possessors  of  madt,'  or  dttchiil  em  madt,  '  subsisting  by  or 
through  77iadt!  Madt  is  in  fact  the  Law  and  Order  by  which 
the  universe  exists.  Truth  and  justice  are  but  forms  of  Madt  as 
applied  to  human  action." — Papyrus'of  Ani,  hitrodtcctloft,  p.  2. 

t  This  prayer  is  contained  in  chap.  xxx.  of  The  Book  of  the 
Dead : — 

"  Chapter  whereby  the  heart  of  a  person  is  not  kept  back  from 
him  in  the  Netherworld, 

Heart  mine  which  is  that  of  my  mother. 

Whole  heart  mine  which  is  that  of  my  birth, 

Let  there  be  no  estoppel  against  me  through  evidence,  let  no 


54  THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN    DOCTRINE   OF 

against  him,  for  "  the  heart  of  a  man  is  his  own 
god,"  *  and  must  now  determine  his  everlasting 
fate.  If  his  heart  were  content  with  him,  and  the 
scales  turned  in  his  favour,  then  the  god  Thot 
commanded  that  his  heart  should  be  restored  to 
him  to  be  set  again  in  its  place.  This  was  done, 
and  forthwith  the  immortal  elements  which  death 
had  separated  began  to  reunite.  His  Ka,  and  all 
the  remaining  parts  of  himself,  were  now  restored 
to  the  justified  OsiRIS,  who  was  thus  built  up  into 
the  complete  man  who  had  once  walked  the  earth, 
and  who  now  entered  upon  a  new  life,  the  ever- 
lasting  hfe   of  the   righteous    and  the  blessed.     He 

hindrance  be  made  to  me  by  the  divine  Circle ;  fall  thou 

not  against  me  in  presence  of  him  who  is  at  the  Balance. 
Thou  art  my  genius  (Ka),  who  art  by  me  (in  my  Kha-t),  the 

Artist  who  givest  soundness  to  my  limbs. 
Come  forth  to  the  bliss  towards  which  we  are  bound  ; 
Let  not  those  Ministrants  who  deal  with  a  man  according  to 

the  course  of  his  life  give  a  bad  odour  to  my  name. 
Pleasant  for  us,   pleasant  for  the  listener,  is  the  joy  of  the 

Weighing  of  the  Words. 
Let  not  lies  be  uttered  in  presence  of  the  great  god.  Lord  of 

the  Amenti. 
Lo  !  how  great  art  thou  (as  the  triumphant  one)." 

— Renouf's  U'anslatioii. 
*  As  stated  on  the  mummy  case  of    Panehemisis,  ed.  Von 
Bergmann,  I.,  p.  29. 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL.  55 

was  joyfully  admitted  by  the  gods  into  their  circle, 
and  was  henceforth  as  one  of  them. 

The  Book  of  the  Dead^  and  cognate  religious  texts, 
always  assume  that  judgment  goes  in  favour  of  the 
deceased,  that  his  heart  approves  him,  and  that 
he  becomes  one  of  the  blessed.  Nowhere  are  we 
clearly  informed  as  to  the  fate  of  the  condemned 
who  could  not  stand  before  the  god  Osiris.  We  are 
told  that  the  enemies  of  the  gods  perish,  that  they  are 
destroyed  or  overthrown ;  but  such  vague  expres- 
sions afford  no  certainty  as  to  how  far  the  Egyptians 
in  general  believed  in  the  existence  of  a  hell  as  a 
place  of  punishment  or  purification  for  the  wicked  ;* 
or  whether,  as  seems  more  probable,  they  held  some 
general  belief  that  when  judgment  was  pronounced 
against  a  man  his  heart  and  other  immortal  parts 
were  not  restored  to  him.  For  such  a  man  no 
re-edification  and  no  resurrection  was  possible.  The 
immortal  elements  were  divine,  and  by  nature  pure 
and    imperishable ;    but    they    could    be    preserved 

*  The  conception  of  a  kind  of  hell  is  certainly  found  in  the 
book  Am  Duat  (cf.  Jequier,  Le  livre  de  ce  qii'il  y  a  dans 
VHades^  Paris,  1894,  p.  127);  such  allusions  are,  however,  ex- 
ceptional, and  Egyptian  belief  in  a  hell  appears  to  have  existed 
at  times  only,  and  to  have  been  confined  to  certain  classes  of 
society. 


56 


THE   ANCIENT   EGYrXIAN   DOCTRINE   OF 


from  entering  the  OsiRIS,  from  re-entering  the  hull 
of  the  man  who  had  proved  himself  unworthy  of 
them.  The  soul,  indeed,  as  such  did  not  die, 
although  personal  annihilation  was  the  lot  of  the 
evil-doer  in  whom  it  had  dwelt.  But  it  was  the 
hope  of  continued  individuality  which  their  doctrine 
held  out  to  the  Egyptians  ;  this  it  was  which  they 


Fig.  17. — The  Blessed  Dead  ploughing  and  sowing  by  the  waters 
of  the  celestial  Nile.     (^From  "  The  Book  of  ihe  Dead^^ 

promised  to  the  good  and  in  all  probability  denied 
to  the  wicked. 

After  judgment  the  righteous  entered  into  blessed- 
ness, unchanged  in  appearance  as  in  nature ;  the 
only  difference  being  that,  while  the  existence  which 
they  had  led  upon  earth  had  been  limited  in  its 
duration,  the  life  of  the  world  to  come  was  eternal. 
But  the  future    blessedness  for  which  the  Egyptian 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL. 


57 


hoped  was  far  from  being   a   passive   state   of  bliss 
such  as  is  promised  by  most  of  the  higher  religions, 


an  absorption  into  the  All  or  into  the  Godhead,  a 
dreamy  state  of  floating  in  everlasting  repose,  content, 
and   unimpassioned    joy.      The    average    Egyptian 


S8  THE  ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN   DOCTRINE   OF 

expected    to    lead 


as 


active   a    life    in    the   world 
to  come  as  he   had  led 

here.  Although  with 
the  Godhead,  he  counted 
on  retaining  his  inde- 
)  pendent  individuality  in 
all  respects  and  on 
working  and  enjoying 
himself  even  as  he  had 
done  on  earth.  He  ex- 
pected his  chief  employ- 
ment to  be  agriculture, 
the  occupation  which 
must  have  seemed  most 
natural  to  a  people  al- 
most entirely  dependent 
upon  the  produce  of 
the  fields.  A  vignette 
belonging  to  chap.  ex. 
of  Thz  Book  of  the 
Dead  represents  the 
dead  at  work  in  the 
fields  of  the  Blessed,*  ploughing  with  oxen,  casting 

*  The    "  fields   of  Aalu  " ;   cf.    the   "  Elysian   fields  "^  of  the 
Greeks. 


a  ^ 


-o  k. 


O    ^ 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL. 


59 


the  seed-corn  into  the  furrows  (fig.  17),  cutting 
the  ripe  ears  with  sickles,  driving  oxen  to  tread 
out  the  grain  from  the  straw  (fig.  18),  and  finally 
piling  up  the  corn  in  heaps  against  it  was  required 
to  serve  for  the  making  of  bread.     For  change  and 


Fig.  20. — The  Blessed  Dead  making  offerings  to  the  celestial  Nile-god. 
(^Front  "  The  Book  of  the  Dead.'") 

recreation  they  sailed  upon  the  canals  of  the  next  world 
in  their  boats  (fig.  19),  played  at  draughts  with  their 
own  souls,  or  made  offerings  to  the  gods,  especially 
to  the  celestial  Nile,  which  gave  water  to  their  fields 
and  fertility  to  their  seed  (fig.  20).  All  went  on  exactly 
as  here,  excepting  that  the  work  of  the  blessed  was 


6o         THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN   DOCTRINE   OF 

invariably  crowned  with  success.  The  Nile  always 
overflowed  the  fields  to  best  advantage,  the  corn 
grew  five  ells  high  and  its  ears  were  two  ells  long, 
the  harvest  never  failed  to  be  abundant,  the  weather 
was  always  favourable,  the  fresh  and  pleasant  north 
wind  was  always  blowing,  the  foe  was  always  con- 
quered, and  the  gods  graciously  accepted  all  offerings 
and  requited  the  givers  with  rich  gifts  of  all  kinds. 
In  short,  the  life  of  the  dead  in  the  kingdom  of  the 
gods  was  an  idealised  earthly  life,  although  not 
always  a  very  moral  life  according  to  our  standards. 

But  this  belief  in  the  life  of  the  next  world  as  the 
exact  counterpart  of  this  implied  a  danger  which 
involved  the  Egyptian  in  heavy  cares.  The  dead 
lived,  therefore  they  must  of  necessity  eat  and  drink, 
for  without  these  processes  the  continuation  of  life 
was  inconceivable ;  if  the  dead  were  without  food 
they  would  be  starved.  The  inscription  of  the 
sepulchral  pyramid  of  Unas,  an  Egyptian  king  of 
the  Fifth  Dynasty,  gives  expression  to  this  fear. 
"  Evil  is  it  for  Unas,"  says  that  text,  "  to  be  hungry 
and  have  nothing  to  eat  ;  evil  is  it  for  Unas  to  be 
thirsty  and  have  nothing  to  drink."  The  necessities 
of  life  were,  indeed,  partly  ensured  to  the  dead  by 
means  of  the  offerings  made  to  them  by  their  sur- 


THE    IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL. 


6i 


vivors  on  recurrent  feast-days,  and  partly  mysteriously 
created  for  their  use  in  the  next  world  by  the  repeti- 
tion of  magic  formulae  in  this.*     But  if  the  offerings 


Fig.  21. — Ancient  kingdom  KA-statues  of  servants — potters  and 
bread-makers.     (Originals  in  the  Ghizeh  Museum^ 

ceased,  or  if  no  one  took  the  trouble  to  repeat  the 

formulae,  the  dead  were  left  to  their  own   resources, 

and    must   work,  and    till  the  land,   and    earn    their 

own  living. 

*  See  p.  19. 


62  THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN   DOCTRINE   OF 

Such  enforced  labour  could  hardly  have  appeared 
very  attractive  to  Egyptians  of  the  upper  classes, 
and  so  an  expedient  suggested  by  the  conditions  of 
their  earthly  life  was  devised  for  evading  it  on  their 
behalf.  The  rich  man  who  had  servants  to  work  for 
him  in  this  world  was  desirous  of  securing  like  service 
for  himself  in  the  world  to  come.  In  the  time  of  the 
Ancient  Empire  it  seems  to  have  been  taken  for 
granted  that  those  who  were  servants  in  this  life 
would  be  servants  also  in  the  life  beyond.  With  this 
selfish  end  in  view  the  rich  of  those  times  had  placed 
within  their  own  sepulchral  chambers  KA-statues  of 
their  servants  in  order  to  ensure  immortal  life  to  them 
also  (fig.  2i).  As  the  old  Germans  were  followed 
into  the  next  world  by  their  slaves  and  horses  ;  as 
other  uncivilised  nations  sent  the  servants  of  the  dead 
to  the  realm  of  death  after  their  masters,*  so  in 
*  From  scenes  in  the  tomb  of  Mentuherkhepeshf  at  Thebes, 
dating  from  the  beginning  of  the  Nineteenth  Dynasty,  we  have 
evidence  that  Egyptian  funeral  ceremonies  occasionally  included 
human  sacrifice  at  the  gate  of  the  tomb,  the  object  of  such 
sacrifice  being  doubtless  that  of  sending  servants  to  the  dead. 
But  the  practice  would  seem  to  have  been  very  exceptional,  at 
any  rate  after  Egypt  had  entered  upon  her  long  period  of 
greatness.  See  M aspero,  Memoires  de  la  Mission  Archeologique 
du  Caire,  V.,  p.  452;  cf.  Wiedemann,  in  Le  Mtiseon,  XIII.,  p.  457 
et  seq. ;  see  also  Griffith,  The  Tomb  ofPaheri^  pp.  20,  21,  in  the 
Eleventh  Memoir  of  the  Egypt  Exploration  Fund, 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL.  63 

Ancient  Egypt  a  certain  portion  of  mankind  was 
set  apart  to  serve  the  rest  through  all  eternity.  But 
as  Egyptian  civilisation  advanced  and  a  more  humane 
state  of  feeling  dawned,  these  views  were  modified, 
and  the  thought  gained  ground  that  all  Egyptians 
were  equal  in  the  presence  of  death  and  of  the  gods. 
So  the  rich  man  was  obliged  to  renounce  his  hope  of 
finding  his  servants  again  at  his  service  beyond  the 
tomb,  and  was  face  to  face  with  the  old  fear  of  being 
reduced  to  heavy  toil  through  the  possible  negligence 
of  his  successors.  ~^' 

A  most  singular  expedient  was  adopted  to  avert 
this  danger  :  little  images  of  clay,  or  wood,  or  stone, 
or  even  of  bronze,  were  made  in  human  likeness, 
inscribed  >vith  a  certain  formula,*  and  placed  within 
the  tomb,  in  the  hope  that  they  would  there  attain 
to  life  and  become  the  useful  servants  of  the  blessed 
dead ;  they  are  the  so-called  USHABTIU  (or  Respond- 
ents), of  which  hundreds  and  thousands  of  specimens 

*  Chapter  vi.  of  The  Book  of  the  Dead  aon^xsts  of  this  formula, 
which  there  reads:  "O  Ushabti  there!  Should  I  be  called  and 
appointed  to  do  any  of  the  labours  that  are  done  in  the  Nether- 
world by  a  person  according  to  his  abilities,  lo  !  all  obstacles 
have  been  beaten  down  for  thee  ;  be  thou  counted  for  me  at 
every  moment,  for  planting  the  fields,  for  watering  the  soil,  for 
conveying  the  sands  of  East  and  West.  Here  am  I,  whither- 
soever thou  callest  me  ! " — Re7iouf's  Translation, 


64  THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN    DOCTRINE  OF 

may  be  found  in  collections  of  Egyptian  antiquities 
(see  Frontispiece  *).  These  "  servants  for  the  under- 
world," or  "  servants  to  the  OsiRIS,"  as  the  texts  call 
them,  owed  their  very  being  and  life  to  the  dead,  and 
stood  to  him  in  the  same  relation  as  man  to  God. 
And  as  men  seek  to  testify  their  gratitude  to  the 
Creator  by  doing  Him  service,  so  it  was  hoped  that 
these  little  figures  would  show  their  thankfulness  by 
their  diligence,  and  spare  their  master  and  maker 
all  toil. 

Many  other  customs  arose  out  of  similar  ideas  to 
those  which  gave  rise  to  the  institution  of  USHABTiu. 
Articles  of  personal  adornment  and  for  toilet  use, 
wreaths,  weapons,  carriages,  playthings,  and  tools 
were  given  to  the  dead,  and  a  whole  set  of  household 
furniture  was  often  laid  away  in  the  grave  in  order 
that  the  OsiRIS  should  not  be  obliged  to  set  to  work 
at  once  to  make  or  collect  these  things  for  himself  on 
his  entrance  into  the  next  world  ;  for  this  purpose 
choice  was  often  made  of  such  objects  as  the  man 
had  used  and  valued  in   his  lifetime.     All  this  care, 

*  The  frontispiece  represents  one  of  399  Ushabtiu  made  for  a 
priest  named  Horut'a,  who  lived  during  the  Twenty-sixth  IJynasty. 
These  Ushabtiu  were  found  at  Hawara  by  Petrie  :  see  Kahun^ 
Gjirob^  and  Hawara,  pp.  9,  19. 


J.  ^ 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  SOUL.  6$ 

however,  was  bestowed  not  simply  in  the  interest  of 
those  who  had  entered  upon  the  life  everlasting  but 
also  in  that  of  those  who  were  left  behind.  Among 
other  powers  possessed  by  the  dead  was  that  of  going 
to  and  fro  upon  earth  ;  and,  to  prevent  their  exercise 
of  it,  all  things  whose  lack  might  impel  them  to 
revisit  the  scenes  of  their  earthly  lives  were  placed 
within  the  tombs,  for  their  visits  might  not  be  alto- 
gether pleasant  for  survivors  withholding  any  part 
of  the  goods  which  belonged  to  the  dead.  But 
these  facts  must  not  lead  us  to  conclude  that  the 
tomb  was  the  permanent  dwelling  of  the  dead,  and 
that  the  objects  placed  within  it  were  really  intended 
for  his  use  there,  and  for  all  time. 

As  the  amulets  laid  in  and  about  the  mummy  were 
for  the  use  of  the  OsiRIS,  so  the  furniture  and  imple- 
ments placed  near  the  coffin  were  intended  not  so 
much  for  the  mummy  lying  in  its  tomb  as  for  the 
Osiris  dwelling  with  the  gods.  Each  of  these  objects 
had  its  heavenly  counterpart,  even  as  the  mummy 
was  represented  by  the  OsiRlS.* 

*  Professor  Petrie,  speaking  of  his  discovery  that  it  was  the 
Egyptian  custom  to  place  masonic  deposits  of  miniature  model 
tools,  etc.,  underneath  the  foundations  of  temples,  and  giving  an 
account  of  the  foundation  deposits  which  he  found  beneath  the 
pyramid  temple  of  Usertesen  II.,  at  Illahun,  says  :    "  The  reason 

5 


66  THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN    DOCTRINE   OF 

It  was  thus  that  the  Egyptians  sought  to  make 
themselves  homes  in  the  next  world,  and  to  secure  all 
the  comforts  and  pleasures  of  their  earthly  life  in 
the  life  which  was  to  come.  Nevertheless,  the  pious 
Egyptian  did  not  expect  to  remain  for  ever  as  an 
Osiris,  or  as  a  god  in  human  likeness  :  he  rather 
hoped  for  ever-increasing  freedom,  for  the  power  of 
taking  other  shapes  and  transforming  himself  at  will 
into  quadrupeds ;  or  into  birds — such  as  the  swallow 
or  the  heron  ;  or  into  plants — more  especially  the 
lotus  ;  or  even  into  gods  * 

This  is  no  doctrine  of  compulsory  transmigration 
such  as  used  to  be  freely  ascribed  to  the  Egyptians 
on  the  strength  of  the  statements  made  by  Hero- 
dotus t  ;    there    is  no  question    here  of  souls   being 

for  burying  such  objects  is  yet  unexplained ;  but  it  seems  not 
unlikely  that  they  were  intended  for  the  use  of  the  Kas  of  the 
builders,  like  the  models  placed  in  tombs  for  the  Kas  of  the 
deceased.  Whether  each  building  had  a  Ka,  which  needed 
ghostly  repair  by  the  builders'  Kas,  is  also  to  be  considered " 
(Ka/iun,  Giirod,  and  Hawara^  p.  22).  We  know  that  each 
building  had  its  guardian  spirit  in  the  form  of  a  serpent  (cf.  the 
representation  of  one  dating  from  the  time  of  Amenophis  III.,  in 
Ghizeh,  No.  217,  published  by  Mariette,  Mon,  Div.,  pi.  63  <5). 

*  The  Book  of  the  Dead,  chaps.  Ixxvi. — Ixxxviii. 

t  "The  Egyptians  were  also  the  first  to  broach  the  opinion  that 
the  soul  of  man  is  immortal,  and  that  when  the  body  dies  it 
enters  into  an  animal  which  is  born  at  the  same  moment,  thence 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL.  67 

forced  to  assume  fresh  forms  in  which  their  purifica- 
tion is  gradually  worked  out  and  their  perfection 
achieved.  To  the  Egyptian  transmigration  was  not 
the  doom  of  imperfect  souls,  but  a  privilege  re- 
served for  such  as  had  already  attained  perfection. 
Again  and  again  the  texts  assert  that  the  blessed 
may  assume  any  form  and  visit  any  place  at  will ; 
body  and  place  can  no  longer  enthral  him.  He 
may  trav^el  round  the  heavens  with  the  Sun-god  Ra, 
or  arise  from  the  shades  with  Osiris  in  the  "  divine 
night "  of  the  26th  of  the  month  Khoiak  {i.e.  at  the 
winter  solstice)  ;  he  is  even  as  a  god,  nay,  he  is 
himself  a  god,  able  to  live  in  and  by  Truth,  actually 
taking  it,  indeed,  as  food  and  drink. 

The  power  of  the  soul  to  incarnate  itself  at  pleasure 
became  one  of  the  chief  reasons  for  embalming  the 
body.  As  we  have  seen,  the  preservation  of  the 
body  was  held  to  be  necessary  because  the  mummy 

passing  on  (from  one  animal  into  another)  until  it  has  circled 
through  all  creatures  of  the  earth,  the  water,  and  the  air,  after 
which  it  enters  again  into  a  new-born  human  frame.  The  whole 
period  of  the  transmigration  is  (they  say)  three  thousand  years. 
There  are  Greek  writers,  some  of  an  earlier,  some  of  a  later  date, 
who  have  borrowed  this  doctrine  from  the  Egyptians,  and  put  it 
forward  as  their  own." — Herodotus,  II.,  123.  See  Wiede- 
mann, Herodots  Zweites  Buck,  p.  457  et  seq. 


68  THE  ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN   DOCTRINE  OF 

was  supposed  to  be  the  material  form  of  which  the 
Osiris  was  the  essential  reality.  But  this  temporary- 
need  might  have  been  met  in  simpler  fashion,  since 
the  journey  of  the  Soul  to  the  Hall  of  Judgment 
was  accomplished  in  a  comparatively  short  time. 
There  was,  however,  a  further  need  for  which  pro- 
vision had  to  be  made.  The  soul  might  sometimes 
visit  the  mummy,  again  take  up  its  abode  in  its 
former  body,  and,  animating  it  anew,  return  to  earth 
under  that  form  and  thus  revisit  the  spots  where 
once  it  had  dwelt.  To  this  end  it  required  an  earthly 
and  tangible  body,  and  this  was  supplied  by  the 
mummy.  If  the  mummy  were  destroyed,  then  the 
soul  not  only  lost  one  of  the  forms  in  which  it  might 
incarnate  itself,  but  that  one  with  which  its  interests 
were  naturally  most  closely  connected — that  one  which 
linked  it  to  earth  and  best  enabled  it  to  exhort  the 
survivors  to  remember  the  funerary  offerings,  and  to 
see  how  it  fared  with  those  whom  it  had  been  obliged 
to  leave  behind.  The  destruction  of  the  mummy 
did  not  involve  the  destruction  of  the  soul,  but  it 
narrowed  the  soul's  circle  of  activity  and  limited  its 
means  of  transmigration. 

This  doctrine  gave  rise  to  the  necromantic  theory 
that  a  soul  might  be  compelled  by  means  of  magic 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL.  69 

formulae  to  re-enter  its  body,  and  to  speak  through 
the  dead  h'ps.  The  magician  who  had  brought 
this  about  could  then  stipulate  for  all  kinds  of 
favours  before  restoring  the  soul  to  freedom.  It 
is  true  that  such  an  attempt  was  reckoned  highly- 
dangerous  ;  and,  according  to  a  tale  dating  from 
Ptolemaic  times,  a  royal  prince  named  Setna,*  who 
had  succeeded  in  the  undertaking,  paid  heavily  for 
having  sought  to  make  the  spirits  of  the  dead  subject 
to  him,  when,  through  his  own  imprudence,  he  was 
overpowered   by  those  whom  he  had  invoked. 


The  above  sketch  of  the  eschatology  of  the  Ancient 
Egyptians  is  drawn  from  their  own  religious  texts. 
\  As  to  the  origin  of  that  system  and  the  transforma- 
tions which  it  had  undergone  before  reaching  the 
form  under  which  it  is  known  to  us  we  are  as  yet 
entirely  ignorant ;  but  it  is  obvious  that  it  must  have 
developed  gradually  and  assimilated  many  originally 
heterogeneous  doctrines.  For  instance,  the  Ka  and 
the  Osiris  must  surely  once  have  had  the  same 
significance,  and  not  have   been  considered  as   two 

*  For  the  "Story  of  Setna  "  see  Vol.  II.  of  Professor  Petries 
Egyptia7i  Tales. 


JO  THE   ANCIENT   EGYPTIAN    DOCTRINE   OF 

different  factors  of  the  dead  man's  being  until  time 
had  brought  about  the  fusion  of  two  theological 
systems — in  one  of  which  the  Ka  was  regarded  as 
the  spiritual  Doppelgdnger,  or  Double,  while  in  the 
other  it  was  named  the  OsiRlS.  All  attempts 
at  solving  these  and  similar  problems  connected 
with  this  subject  are,  as  yet,  mere  hypotheses. 
As  far  back  as  Egyptian  history  has  been  traced 
the  people  appear  to  have  been  in  possession  not 
only  of  written  characters,  national  art  and  insti- 
tutions, but  also  of  a  complete  system  of  religion./ 
As  in  all  other  departments  of  Egyptian  life  and 
thought,  so  with  the  Egyptian  religion — we  cannot 
trace  its  beginnings.  In  the  earliest  glimpse  of  it 
afforded  by  the  Egyptian  texts  it  appears  as  perfect 
in  all  its  essential  parts ;  nor  were  after-times  able 
to  effect  much  change  in  it  by  the  addition  of  new 
features.  What  greatly  intensifies  the  deep  historical 
interest  of  Egyptian  eschatology  is  that  it  testifies 
not  only  to  the  fact  that  a  whole  nation  believed  in 
the  immortality  of  the  soul  four  thousand  years  before 
the  birth  of  Christ,  but  also  that  this  nation  had 
even  then  succeeded  in  clearly  picturing  the  future 
life  to  themselves  after  a  fashion  which  may  indeed 
often  seem  strange  and  incomprehensible  to  modern 


THE   IMMORTALITY   OF   THE   SOUL.  71 

minds  but  to  which  we  cannot  deny  a  certain  con- 
sistency and  a  deep  spiritual  connotation. 

We  shall  not  here  discuss  the  many  analogies  sub- 
sisting between  Egyptian  belief  and  the  religious 
systems  of  other  nations  and  times,  nor  yet  its 
great  differences  from  them  ;  and  it  is  for  the 
sciences  of  anthropology  and  comparative  religion 
to  determine  to  what  extent  the  Egyptian  doctrine 
of  immortality  originated  in  Egypt  itself,  and  how 
much  was  brought  there  by  the  Egyptians  from 
the  common  home  which  they  had  shared  with  the 
Semites  and  Indo-europeans. 


Printed  by  HazeU,  Watson,  &  Viney,  Ld.,  London  and  Aylesbury. 


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